Thursday, June 28, 2018
We apologize for the blog delay, but we could not get the Wi-Fi to work at our last hotels.
Today we made the several hour trip from Artesia, NM to Pecos, TX. We were a little nervous about the trip because one of the rangers from Carlsbad said the road was full of potholes made by the scores of large oil tanker trucks that used that part of Hwy 285. Fortunately, the road wasn’t nearly as in poor condition as she had described, but the tanker truck part was true. Never before have we seen so many tanker trucks either on the road or off it. The scenery hasn’t changed much since yesterday’s car trip, and the oil business surrounds us.
Pecos was written up several years ago as being one of the fastest growing small towns in the US. If so, it is only because of OIL. There isn’t much to the town itself except lots of newly built overpriced hotels, large box stores like Walmart, and fast food restaurants. There was no street with shops like we’ve found in all small towns throughout our travels. We did locate The West of the Pecos Museum that is in an old saloon built in 1896 and a hotel that had been added on in 1904. The Chamber of Commerce is housed in an old train station. In front of these buildings was a (as usual) an oversized statue of Pecos Bill riding a snake and colorful oversized cowboy boots similar to the guitars we had around Cleveland at one time. But we didn’t come to Pecos for its beauty. We came to Pecos for The West of the Pecos Rodeo. It claims to be first rodeo held in the U.S. back in June 1883. We had missed seeing a rodeo in Cody, WY by one day and were determined to see one before this trip ended. We weren’t disappointed.
Before the rodeo, however, we visited the above-mentioned museum. It was filled with collectible items that had been donated by the community over the years. It was an eclectic mix of things from old photos and barbed wire collections to old silent movie projectors and telephone operator switchboards. There was an electric hair curler machine that resembled an electrocution machine. If only I had a museum to drop off things that I no longer wanted, but just couldn’t bring myself to throw away. We also managed to find a decent TexMex restaurant that wasn’t a fast food joint. It was called Old Mill where we enjoyed what tasted like a home cooked meal of BBQ brisket, potato salad, beans, and Texas toast (which was just regular toast).
The rodeo was born when a dispute between the W. Lazy Y and NA ranches challenged each other as to who had the best ropers and riders. Over 1,000 people came to watch the cowboys compete for a grand prize of $40.00. Today, at the price of $10.00 per ticket we saw 2-1/2 hours of professional bareback bronco riding, team calf roping, steer roping, saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling, down roping, barrel racing, bull riding and an event that involved dragging someone on what used to be a skin, but now is a mat. One side show featured a Mexican cowboy, by the name of Tomas Garcilazo, who did amazing tricks on horseback while spinning a lasso. Another side show was when young kids competed in what was called a boot race. All of their shoes were placed in a pile and from the same starting point they all raced to find their shoes, put them on and returned to the starting point. The winner won a bicycle.
The competition began at 8:00pm—which made it a little cooler outside. It was probably still in the mid-90s, but there was a nice breeze. Only problem was that when the wind picked up there was a lot of desert dust/sand blowing along with it. One other aside is that prior to the show there were a number of vendors selling goods and among the participants was a booth entitled Republican Mobile HQ. Needless to say there was no Democratic presence. And, if you are wondering why there was so much pink being worn it was because the rodeo was donating money toward Breast Cancer.
BY THE WAY WITH WENDY & DAN 